From his teenage years and throughout the rest of his life, the maps George Washington drew and purchased were always central to his work. After his death, many of the most important maps he had acquired were bound into an atlas that remained in his family for almost a century before it was sold, eventually ending up at Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library. Barnet Schecter has crafted a unique portrait of our first Founding Father through these remarkable maps, presented in full reproductions, up to 17 x 13 inches, and in page-filling closeups that reveal every detail. Together with the words of Washington himself, this visual history places the reader at the scenes of his early career as a surveyor, his dramatic exploits in the French and Indian War, his struggles throughout the American Revolution, his diplomacy as president, and his shaping of the new republic.

"A collection of 40 or so maps that Washington collected or personally drew and bound into an atlas. Historian Schecter capitalizes on it to trace both Washington's travels through colonial, revolutionary, and early republican America, and military and political events that Washington followed through cartographic study.... Augmented by portraits of Washington and his contemporaries and scenes of places and episodes of the times, Schecter's conception of converting Washington's atlas into a full-scale illustrated biography results in smashing success. Conveying how Washington visualized North America from the minute to the continental scale, it will fascinate history buffs now and should be durably library-useful."—Booklist (starred review)